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Day: January 25, 2013

The Medician Stars, as Galileo dubbed his discovery in orbit around Jupiter, reimagined as terraformed worlds by 1Wyrmshadow1, on his Deviant Art page. James Oberg discussed their terraforming in his (now classic) “New Earths” (1981), as has Martin Beech in his more recent “Terraforming: The Creating of Habitable Worlds” (2009) and Martyn Fogg in “Terraforming: Engineering Planetary Environments” (1995). The first, semi-serious discussion, was fictional – Robert Heinlein’s “Farmer in the Sky” (serialised as “Satellite Scout” in 1950, then novelised in 1953.) Heinlein’s tale began with Ganymede being given an oxygen atmosphere busted out of ice on the ground, via total-annihilation powered systems. Heinlein is vague on details – he knew the ingredients, not the details. So he had the moon being kept warm via “the Heat-Trap” and the ice being lysed by some energy delivery system. The story begins long after the process had progressed to a colony of 15,000 dirt-farmers slowly converting the place into living room for an over-flowing Earth.

Of course Heinlein had to fudge a few details. Even in 1950 Ganymede was suspected to be rather too low density to be as rocky as Heinlein describes. The real Ganymede is half ice. Not a total disaster. If only the outer-layers melted and the topography was kind, then water would pool in the lower parts and the meteoritic dust in the crust would form a layer of soil over it. Such a world would need to stay, on average, cool, but parts would be warm enough for water and vegetation. Ice warms slowly – witness the permafrost under the tundra of northern Europe. Given a low enough average temperature and enough salts in the ice and the stuff will remain stable. But beware TOO MUCH Global Warming…

There are Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics. The worst lies are told with seemingly significant statistics. Though I’m not a statistician, I am an Australian, and the (ab)use of Australian crime statistics by the NRA in the USA is downright annoying. Less annoying, but more worrying, is how people swallow such crud holus bolus.

However, let’s flip this around. In the USA the homicide rate, from all causes, is about 5 times higher than in Australia, per 100,000 of population. And 2/3rds of homicides are via guns. I can understand how the right to self-defense with guns of one’s choice makes people feel more secure, whether they are or not. But the ease of access combined with the devastating collateral damage power of firearms makes the USA, overall, 500% deadlier than Australia – or even their neighbour, Canada. So I can understand the existential dread that drives people in the States to bear arms, but that fear seems to be more of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

My Mormon friend, Jen, pointed me to a very interesting web-site with all this gun homicide data. Worth a look…

I am not asking my friends in the USA to give up their firearms – hell, I’d pack heat too – but they need to start asking questions about how their “freedom” affects everyone around them. Sure, bad people use guns, when good people don’t. But that Gun Culture comes with a price paid in blood. Denying that fact is suicidal ignorance.